I have neglected this blog for a while because I not could come up with solid content to fill it. Doing analytics is inherently time consuming, my plan is to post at least 1 to 2 analysis a month. The analysis will be based on what I am doing online and my own blogs.
In this article I want to look at Adsense click through rate (CTR) and how you can use this insight to change your ad layout and improve conversion.
Take a look at this report for August todate. The channels, all belonging to the same site, had been masked (We don’t really need that for this discussion anyway).
Some Basics
Before we move on, let’s take a look at some basic. A good source of information is the AdSense Help Center.
In order to obtain the CTR data, we first have to create Channels for each of the ad position.
You might also want to get familiar with some of the terms: Clickthrough rate, Click, Page Impression.
Making Sense of the data
Here, the clickthrough rate (CTR) is the most important figure to look at.
Due to the ads different position and impression on different pages, absolute figure like click and impression does not give a complete picture.
CTR on the other hand tells us how effective is the position, ad format and style.
To compare, take a look at this data from July. Not all the channel corresponds as I had created more channels in August.
The page impression are almost equivalent. We are not at the end of the month yet, so in fact this month’s traffic has slightly increased.
The CTR though has some good news (and so does the number of clicks).
For one channel the rate has increased substantially from 6.46% to 11.52%. This I attribute a creative format change that I had done.
Not shown here is the page Effective CPM, this has also been increased by filtering Low Paying Ads.
The Next Step
In the next month, I am going to remove the low CTR channels and reposition them. Then I’m going to monitor and result.
I hope this helps you as much this exercise had help me. Please share your thoughts and any comment you have.
This article is written by Ken of 59Ideas and first published on Analytic Insight. You may copy and use this article if you retain this message.
Good article. Thank you.
Hey Paddy… didn’t at all expect you to post as a spammy style comment. :o
Hi Ken, if you feel that I am spamming with a link to my site. But I do hope you drop by and see for yourself why the site was set up in the first place. I was going to refer your site on this CTR to my students too. Please remove it then.
You got my email address, I will welcome you to email me directly.
Hi Paddy,
On the contrary, I do not think it was a spam that’s why your comment was moderated and appear here.
You may or may not be aware … a lot of comment spam actually appears as ” Good post”, “Nice article, keep it up” and spam filter will mark it as spam.
I actually mark yours as not spam and my comment was just a friendly poke… in case you get offended.
Hey man, I am sorry if I sounded pissed. No offence, man.
Frankly I been a reader of your blog for a while but seldom post cos you know it may be kinda sensitive at times when I myself has a blog on making money, although with a slightly different objective. :)
Thanks for the vote of confident.Sorry for the short comment, will go slightly longer :)
BTW, I will link your this article to mine for my students (part time evening class students taking dip/ad dip and degree). Tks. Paddy
No worries… that’s the thing with online … you don’t see people’s face and short, terse comment can be misunderstood.
Thanks for the reference! Gives me motivation to write more and better article. Anything topic you have in mind that I could cover?
Hey Ken, sorry for the late reply. Been running about :)
I think you are doing good with what you been covering, always enjoy a good read.